


The Road Not Taken

by insomniabug



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 20:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7588483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insomniabug/pseuds/insomniabug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...</p><p>(Post season two fic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Road Not Taken

She doesn’t hear from him.

She never expected to, but it still hurts more than she thought it would.

_(People that can hurt you, the ones that can really hurt you, are the ones that are close enough to do it.)_

When she’s not reading about the trail of bodies he leaves behind, she hears about him from Matt. Matt continues trying to recruit Frank when their paths inevitably cross, which usually results in violent discussions about ideology. And every time she’s patching Matt up in her dinky kitchen, she can’t help but wonder who was doing the same for the man now only known as the Punisher.

Had he managed to find someone he could trust? Or was he all alone?

What would happen when he became too wounded to treat himself?

Instead of giving voice to the fire raging in her head, she bites her lip and continues administering first aid to her own vigilante. Her faux indifference is obvious and she knows Matt suspects something, but he doesn't ask.

He never does.

She doesn't know what she'd do if she saw Frank. Considering her line of work and the devil they know, she just hopes she has enough time to figure that out before it happens.

_(You do this, and I am done. That's it. You're dead to me.)_

How could she think giving him an ultimatum, threatening him, would stop him from killing a man responsible for the death of his family. The pain that essentially put him in her path. How could her words possibly weigh against the ghosts of his family? What was the loss of whatever they had been compared to the loss of his beloved wife - to the loss of his young children.

She sometimes thinks she sees him. Out of the corner of her eye, just right there, but always feels like she's turning a second too late to catch him. If he was even there to begin with. She blames the late nights; the constant caffeine and burgeoning scotch addiction. She blames it on the fact Matt Murdock is back in her life and causing a whole different kind of mayhem. He tells her everything and it's everything she's ever wanted from him. He finally gives her truth, honesty and fidelity…and sometimes she can’t help but feel it’s all a little bit too late.

A familiar guttural voice whispers of her hypocrisy when she keeps her own secrets locked away tight.

_(I'm already dead.)_

She was naive to think she could save Frank Castle. As more time passes, as his body count rises, she's starting to realize she'd never really met him. The real Frank Castle, the war hero and the family man, died years ago in the middle of Central Park. He was already dead when they met, but she felt something for him all the same. And what did that say about her, that she could have feelings for a dead man?

She thinks of her brother and fears it's her curse to be haunted and abandoned by those she cared too much for.

It's pointless to think about it now. Not when she's got a job, one she’s actually good at and loves, and a decent, if somewhat martyresque, man waiting for her at home.

So she goes on living, and loving, a different man.

Not the wrong one, merely a different one.

But when she catches those false glimpses of a long black coat, or of hastily sprayed white paint flickering on the edge of her vision, she finds herself back in those dark woods.

And imagines steps taken forward instead of away.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the Robert Frost poem.


End file.
